through out of pure love of
science: I was one of its unfortunate reviewers.) The wild form produces
seed, and grows in Cochin China, the Philippines, Ceylon, and Khasia.
Like most other large tropical fruits, it no doubt owes its original
development to the selective action of monkeys, hornbills, parrots and
other big fruit-eaters; and it shares with all fruits of similar origin
one curious tropical peculiarity. Most northern berries, like the
strawberry, the raspberry, the currant, and the blackberry, developed
by the selective action of small northern birds, can be popped at once
into the mouth and eaten whole; they have no tough outer rind or
defensive covering of any sort. But big tropical fruits, which lay
themselves out for the service of large birds or monkeys, have always
hard outer coats, because they could only be injured by smaller animals,
who would eat the pulp without helping in the dispersion of the useful
seeds, the one object really held in view by the mother plant. Often, as
in the case of the orange, the rind even contains a bitter, nauseous, or
pungent juice, while at times, as in the pine-apple, the prickly pear,
the sweet-sop, and the cherimoyer, the entire fruit is covered with
sharp projections, stinging hairs, or knobby protuberances, on purpose
to warn off the unauthorised depredator. It was this line of defence
that gave the banana in the first instance its thick yellow skin; and,
looking at the matter from the epicure's point of view, one may say
roughly that all tropical fruits have to be skinned before they can be
eaten. They are all adapted for being cut up with a knife and fork, or
dug out with a spoon, on a civilised dessert-plate. As for that most
delicious of Indian fruits, the mango, it has been well said that the
only proper way to eat it is over a tub of water, with a couple of
towels hanging gracefully across the side.

The varieties of the banana are infinite in number, and, as in most
other plants of ancient cultivation, they shade off into one another by
infinitesimal gradations. Two principal sorts, however, are commonly
recognised--the true banana of commerce, and the common plantain. The
banana proper is eaten raw, as a fruit, and is allowed accordingly to
ripen thoroughly before being picked for market; the plantain, which is
the true food-stuff of all the equatorial region in both hemispheres, is
gathered green and roasted as a vegetable, or, to use the more
expressive Wes